This invention relates in general to a device for cutting carpet, and in particular to a carpet cutting knife guide for cutting overlapping adjacent edges of two pieces of carpet to be laid adjacent each other such that the adjacent cut edges after cutting abut substantially identically with respect to each other.
In the process of laying carpet, it is many times necessary to use more than one piece of carpet to cover the floor of an entire room. This requirement may be due to the size of a room, to the shape of a room, or to the need to efficiently use various sizes of individual pieces of carpet. One usual approach in piecing together two pieces of carpet is to first measure the space to be covered and then to cut with a knife each piece of carpet individually from its backside according to the measurements earlier taken. Such an approach is known in the art as "straight-edging." While this approach provides two pieces of carpet that, when joined, are quite accurate as to overall dimensions of the room to be carpeted, the site where the adjacent edges of the two pieces actually meet, sometimes called the "seam line," may present an uneven match. The primary cause for such an uneven meeting is due to inaccuracies and difficulties in cutting an exactly-identical dimensional line of fibers in two separate pieces of carpet. Other causes include carpet pieces shifting when folded back into glue after being cut from the backside, and a waviness characteristic occurring upon adherence to the floor which results in the originally-adjacent edges not meeting as earlier experienced. When this occurs, the carpet installer is forced to either stretch or trim one or both pieces of carpet to try and achieve a straight seam line, or to discard the carpet and repeat the procedure with replacement carpet. Both approaches can be very costly, either in respect to labor or to both labor and material.
It therefore is apparent that a need is present for a carpet cutting device that accomplishes uniform cutting of two pieces of carpet whose edges are to be adjacent each other after installation of the carpet is completed.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a carpet cutting knife guide that permits a carpet installer to simultaneously cut overlapping adjacent edges of two pieces of carpet that ultimately will be adjacent each other, thereby creating exactly-identical dimensional lines of cut fibers in two separate pieces of carpet.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a carpet cutting knife guide whose characteristics permit flexibility of movement and ease of travel over the overlapping adjacent edges as a clean and uniform cut of both carpet pieces is accomplished.
These and other object of the present invention will become apparent throughout the description of the invention which now follows.